Is There Extreme Intolerant Religious Left?
I have talked a great deal in my articles of the religious right of the intolerance of the Fundamental Christians. But the question is: Is there a flip side to the extreme fundamental right? Is there an extreme intolerant religious left? Yes.
"UNITARIAN GROUP SPLITS, WANTS GOD IN ITS RELIGION"
Julia Lieblich, Tribune religion reporter. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: Apr 21, 2001. pg. 1
David Burton, attorney, Deist, and a co-founder of a group for Unitarian Universalists who regard themselves as theists is quoted as saying: "The Unitarian tradition...draws inspiration and sustenance from the divine. But Unitarian Universalism as it's practiced today is almost devoid of religious content." He added that most attendees at the Virginia meeting were Unitarian Christians. He said: "Jesus is central to their religion. In most UU congregations, if you got up and started talking about Jesus, you'd be run out on a rail...The UUA is extremely intolerant."
I have found the Religious Tolerance Network completely agreeable on almost every subject. However, I feel that the following comment made by a member of the RTN is not in harmony with my own findings and experinces:
"A small group of two dozen Unitarian Universalists met in Virginia on 2001-APR-22. Their goal was to create a renewal organization for those Unitarian Universalists who regard themselves as theists. They appear to have much less concern with social justice issues than does the general UUA membership."
After I left my own fundamental religious background and became dedicated to researching the subject or Progressive religion I spent a great deal of time in conversing with liberal Christians and Deiests within the UU network. I joined a conversation forum especially for UU Christians ran by the UU minister Scott Wells. Later, Scott Wells would also helped create a UU Christian network called The Magi, especially designed to help UU Christian church get created and suppported. I spent at least 6 years in conversation with these liberal UU Christians and would they expressed to me is that they felt the UUs, as a whole, had developed a strong and ovbious dislike of any deist themed belief system, this including their own minority of UU deists and UU Christians and that the majority favored Humanisists within the vast majority of UUs churches was snuffing out any traits of of their Deist and Judeo-Christian heritage. Moreover, that these Humanist UUs were progressivingly taking steps to omit any mention of even the term "God". It would be very easy for me to many state all this with no backing to prove all these claims made on behalf of UU Deists and UU Christians....if I had not personally observed it with my own eyes. However, I visited 2 UU churches in Southern Califoria for 3 years and I will share with you what I saw.
The Positive
Over the 3 year period that I visted these 2 UU churches I DID see alot of POSITIVE things and hear alot of positive teachings. This one UU church I attended had a Natural deist for a Minister and he was a very kind and non-biast man. He was great at mentioning all the faiths within the UU belief system, including Deists and Judeo-Christianity, as well as Humanist view points. After this minister retired a liberal Jew UU women replaced him and she too was good at this. However, within the congeration there was a number of very anti-Deist Humanists who I saw often made faces of disaprovel whenever the UU minister would invite a Deist or Liberal Jew to speak. But also they made very displeased facial expressions when even the UU minister once invited a Native American elder, who when he simply shared his view in a Great Spirit. Whenever the Native American elder simply mentioned the word, "Creator", or "Great Spirit," the Humanists made ovbious facial expressions of disaproval. More so, once the liberal Jew UU minister invited a liberal Rabbi to share his story of how he moved towards liberal Judism. This Rabbi was very down to earth and friendly and said nothing offensive to any group. However, when he merely started to explain the liberal Jewish style of prayerful mediation and song, at least 7 Humanists stood up from their seats and left the church. And once when I visited the historic UU church in Santa Barbara 3 of the UUs there told me that the hostile feelings between Humanists towards Natural deusts and liberal Christians was so strong that more than once the UU minister had to call a special UU meditor to keep the peace. But what about this stated view made that Liberal Christians seem less dedicated to the causes of social justice than Humanist liberals? I am a subscriber to both the Progressive christian Network news as well a subscriber of "Earth Ministry", a progressive Eco-Christian network and newsletter. I have been recieving both of these Progressive Christian resources for 5 years now. The following is taken directly from, "Earth Ministry."
"In summary, our mission statement calls us as people of faith - seeing something of the Divine in creation - to live reverently and respectfully. It asks us to examine our individual and societal impacts on both the human and non-human world, and to alter our life patterns to reflect God’s loving concern. It calls us to speak out against injustice, to stand with the powerless and voiceless, and to work actively in the causes of justice and peace."
And this from the Official Network Of Progressive Christianity
"By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who…
1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus;
2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us;
3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples;
4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;
5. Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe;
6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes;
7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; and
8. Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege."
We known well why the fundamental far religious right oppose the liberal left and Progressive Christians, because they oppose the social justice freedoms that liberal and progressive Christians stand for. But...what could cause Humanists and the like to dislike Progressive and Liberal Christians, and even all liberal God-based faith groups? Especially when these Liberal and Progressive Deisists and Christians ARE fighting for most of the very same social justice freedoms that all liberals and progressive fight for? All of us individuals who have walked away from extremist fundamental faith group backgrounds and thus become progressive in our views of God and of other faiths knows all too well how coming out of such extreme far right backgrounds and upbringings can cause a person to become bitter and distrustful. Because of this, former fundamentalists who have since become progressive, such as ourselves, realize the dangers and biogtry that is cause by extremist black and white thinking. We came to realize how those on the fundamental extreme right see NO tolerant balanced middel way of life. To THEM your are either in agreement with THEM and THEIR interpretations of the Bible..or you must be anti-God/ Jesus hater. Unforuantly there is also a extreme liberal left version of this black and white thinking and with THEM ANYONE who embraces a belief in a Higher Power other than oneself..even 'if' they state they ARE liberal or progressive and even if they do support social justice issues.. to such extreme leftists..such claims are all lies and cannot be true. It is as if to them to state that one believes in some type of Higher Power or God AND is also a liberal or progressive is a contridiction. Ironically, as if a mirror flip-side to the extreme right, the extreme left views things in black and white too. To THEM if you do not embrace and agree with their interpreations of what it means to be a liberal..then your statements and claims to be a liberal or progressive are invalid. To such extreme leftists you are either Humanists and thus on their side..or..you are on the extreme right and a sexist,racist, homophobic, anti-earth and anti-animal welfare right-winger. These types of extreme leftist fundamentalists usually were burned by an extremist Christian fundamental background, and when they leave such a far right background they become deeply angry and bittered and these negative feelings cause them to become dedicated to attacking all form and expresions of faith. As former members of fundamentalists faith backgrounds, we have seen the extremist thinking in the far right and how sometimes the passion to defend what THEY believe to be the moral way of life has lead to etxreme acts of terror. For example, an extreme right fundamental Christian feels that it is morally wrong to kill unborn babies, so to teach people that it is wrong to kill babies..he blows up an abortion clinic and ends up killing not only his intended targets..but also by standers including a girl scout on her way to grade school, a 75-year old man sitting on a near by park bench feeding the birds, and a young children mother of a 5-year old and 2-year-old. So does this make sense? That this extrem right person kills people to try and prove a point that murder of babies is wrong? Likewise, does it make sense to bomb and kill people of workplaces that they believe is harmful to other living things to prove that harming and killing other living this is wrong? The point is don't become the flipside of the extreme right by becoming a left intolerant answer to fundamentalism.
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